


Two Sides of the Same Coin

by phoenixyfriend



Series: The Girl Genius Ranma AU [2]
Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Bisexuality, Comedy, F/F, F/M, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Inspired by Ranma 1/2, Lesbian Character, M/M, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Other, Paris (City), Two of them actually; one is a shapeshifter and the other one isn't
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2020-10-03 18:15:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20457338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: Hot water. Cold water. Different shape, same person. Gender is bullshit, and Gil isn't the only one who thinks so.Not that Gil knows that yet. It's going to take a while for anyone else to come out, even with Gil refusing to care about anything relating to gender roles in a very,verypublic manner.





	1. Welcome to Paris

**Author's Note:**

> Read the prologue first for some context.

“You’re probably best off with something you can wear _over_ the rest of your clothes instead of as an undergarment,” DuPree said. “If you have to change suddenly in public, it’s going to be a lot easier if you can just toss it on and go, instead of trying to maneuver under all the other fabric.”

Gil looked down at the corset she was offering and made a face. “This isn’t going to crush my ribcage or anything if I get hit by hot water, right?”

DuPree snorted. “We’re not tightlacing you, kid. We’re just looking for something that’s going to keep all of _that_ from bouncing around when you run or flip. You’re sturdy enough that I think you’ll break the corset before it breaks you.”

Gil frowned. “But corsets—”

“Not this kind,” DuPree said, groaning. “Come on, you can’t tell me you’ve never researched corsets before. That Von Pinn lady must have talked you through some of it, at least.”

“…I just think they’re uncomfortable,” Gil admitted. “And I don’t like wearing them.”

DuPree stared at him, arms crossed. “You are going to_ bounce_ and it’s going to _hurt.”_

“It feels like I’m being caged.”

“I will stab you if you don’t let me help you.”

“…your job is—”

“I don’t care,” DuPree said. “There will be stabbing.”

Gil crossed his arms under his chest, not entirely willing to admit that, yes, the discomfort of a corset would probably make up for the actual pain of trying to do strenuous activity while his chest was free. He stared her down.

She stared back, entirely unwilling to budge.

“…mademoiselles?” one of the shop attendants said. She’d offered to help them when they’d stepped in, been spoken over by DuPree, and had since stood aside watching them argue. “If those are your concerns, we do have a few options you might be interested in?”

“He’ll try them on,” DuPree said, before Gil could even comment.

“…ah,” the girl said. “In that case, we also have some options that would… flatten the chest a little, so to speak.”

“Do they cause breathing difficulty?” DuPree asked.

“Usually,” the attendant admitted. “With a chest at that size, almost certainly at least a little.”

Gil made a face. “Definitely not.”

“But definitely nothing meant to enhance, yes?” the attendant prodded.

“I don’t care what they look like,” Gil said. “I just want to be able to fight.”

“See, I prefer something with a little skull motif, myself,” DuPree mused.

“I’m not you, Queen DuPree.”

“…not _Bangladesh_ DuPree?” The shop attendant whispered, mottling red and white as she stared at the woman. “Oh my. Oh my stars, I’m going to have to tell Madame Ge—”

“You can do that later,” DuPree said. “Right now, we’re helping Gil here, because he’s a disaster.”

“Right,” the shop attendant said. “I can do that.”

o.o.o.o.o

“This feels weird,” Gil grumbled.

“Get over it,” DuPree advised.

o.o.o.o.o

Colette was two years younger than Gil, not a spark, and also possibly the Master’s favorite child, if the rumors were to be believed. She greeted Gil outside the university with a smile, bright and knowing, and offered to show him around.

“Have you had time to settle in?”

“Well, a hot bath did me wonders,” Gil admitted. It had also given him an excuse to ditch the corset. Unfortunately, he’d gotten a little distracted trying to keep Zoing from playing with the bubbles and had to delve into cleaning the bathroom up before he’d left. Animals the size and intelligence of young children were not the most organized of roommates, and he’d hate to make the hotel have a grudge against him before he’d even spent a single night in Paris.

“I can see that,” Colette said. She laughed when Gil frowned at her. “Papa told me about your situation, and I saw you wandering about with that pirate woman yesterday.”

“Funny coincidence,” Gil said.

“You don’t believe that,” Colette dismissed. “We’ve been keeping an eye on you since you arrived, of course. You know why.”

Gil did. Gil also knew that the Master of Paris had agreed to keep Gil’s parentage a secret while he was in Paris. Colette was one of the pre-approved people to know. She was one of the _only_ people to know.

She’d also clearly been briefed on other things.

“That’s the philosophy building,” Colette said, startling Gil out of his thoughts. “You’ll be having at least two classes there.”

“You’re sure about that?” Gil asked. “I didn’t sign up for any.”

“Oh yes, ‘Ethics 101’ and ‘The Morality of Scientific Progress’ are both mandatory classes for all students,” Colette assured him. “You can take other courses in there if you’d like, of course, but those two aren’t optional.”

“I can imagine why,” Gil allowed.

Colette smiled at him again. “That way is the engineering building. I’m sure you’ve got plans there, from what I’ve seen of your course load—”

“You looked at my class schedule?” Gil asked.

“—and over there is the Zoology and Organic Materia building,” Colette finished. _“Also_ of interest to you, if I’m not mistaken.”

Gil made a face. “Why were you looking at my courses?”

“To be the best tour guide I could be, of course,” Colette said. She flipped her hair. “I’m going to be your touchstone in this city. You’ll have a Resident Assistant, of course, and make friends, and that pirate woman, but if you need something of Paris, especially in regards to… certain aspects of your life, then you’ll be speaking with me.”

Gil ignored that. “Resident Assistant? I was planning on an apartment, not—”

“All students are in student housing their first year,” Colette told him. “Unless they commute from home. So yes, you’ll be in a dorm, and you’ll have a resident assistant.”

“Is it a co-ed dorm?” Gil asked.

“With a single room for you, yes,” Colette said. “Your father actually insisted on it. Something about it being harder to figure out your background if you were alone.”

Gil made another face.

“Come on,” Colette said. “Let me show you the best cafes.”

o.o.o.o.o

Gil didn’t even get to his first class before he had to get involved in a fight. Bang had disappeared into the ether for her own purposes, and he’d started making his way to the mechanics building at an easy walking pace, trying to take in all the sites around him while he had the time.

These sites, after several blocks, suddenly included a rampaging saber tooth tiger, sized up to be larger than an elephant, and rather insistently attempting to eat a small child.

Gil ran forward before he’d fully processed what was going on, dove and grabbed the kid, and rolled to his feet in time to escape the jaws that snapped down behind him.

“Wowee, mister!” The little girl said, eyes shining. “Thanks!”

Gil ignored the curdling in his gut at the way the girl stared at him, because her mother showed up and, given that the woman was dressed in all black and cold as ice, with a pallor that he’d rarely seen on anything other than a corpse, he decided that he was going to refrain from investigating what was _probably_ an undead family. Even if the kid was rosy-cheeked and wearing pink and white and so, so, so many ruffles.

“My thanks,” the woman said, voice quiet and controlled. “But if you intend to involve yourself in these things, follow them through.”

“Wh—”

“MY CABBAGES.”

Gil whipped around to where the prehistoric tiger was still trying to eat people.

“Ah.”

He stared for a moment at the destroyed vegetable card, oddly stocked with nothing but cabbages, and then started sprinting for the nearest washing line.

“Godspeed,” he heard the undead woman mutter behind him.

Gil bounced off of a handful of walls, snagged the thankfully empty wire of the washing line, and dropped directly onto the beast’s neck. It didn’t seem to notice him. Gil took note of the large metal panel set into the skin of the neck, and then wrapped the washing line to one of his textbooks and used the weight of it to swing the cable around and through the mouth of the tiger. Now bridled, Gil could at least somewhat control it, even if the presence of such a thing was making it even angrier than before.

They careened from side to side, Gil frantically opening the panel and scanning the components for something he could tweak. This creature was _marvelous,_ really, and he didn’t want to kill it. He wanted to figure out how whoever had made it had achieved such a feat.

But it also really needed to be stopped, so he yanked himself back from the knife’s edge of entering a fugue and twisted a few knobs that looked about right. The sabre-tooth tiger roared, and Gil steered it away from the glass window of a wedding shop and into a large, open square.

“OUT OF THE WAY!” He called.

The tiger leaped and twisted, trying to knock him off, and Gil swore as he clung to the washing line hard enough for it to dig into his hands and make him bleed. He jumped off at the apex of one leap, taking the wire with him, and launched into a run as soon as his feet hit the ground. The sabre-tooth tiger gave chase, footsteps heavy and uneven, and Gil aimed for the least-populated area he could see.

It was tiring. Good.

He ricocheted off of the low wall he’d spied on his way over, zipped as quickly as he could through the legs of the tiger, and pulled the wire tight behind him.

The tiger toppled forwards, not yet having countered its own momentum, and directly into the fountain that had been the very reason there weren’t any people to crush with the bulk.

The water splashed out in a large wave, and landed directly on Gil’s back.

He felt the shift, and looked down.

Breasts. And while his shirt was still in one piece, it was no longer buttoned.

“Shit,” he muttered, quickly yanking the center top together to hide the worst of the societal infraction. The shirt was loose enough to cover anything, though not enough to hide the details of Gil’s form; he was just too large up top to really make that work.

And he’d lost the corset that was _supposed_ to maintain modesty when he’d lost his bag. He’d have to go back along the tiger’s entire _route_ to find the—

“Ah, excuse me?”

Gil looked up from where he was having a very invested, very silent argument with his buttons. He blinked. “Uh, hi?”

The man held out Gil’s bag. “You dropped this.”

“Oh,” Gil said. His brain clicked back into gear. “Oh! Oh, hey, thanks!’

He grabbed the bag and dug out the ‘adventure corset’ DuPree had insisted on. It was a bit irritating to pull on by himself, but he managed it.

“Are you sure you’re quite alright?” The man asked.

“Yeah, that was normal,” Gil said. Ugh, his shirt was sopping, wasn’t it? That was going to be hell to deal with unless he could find a way to grab a new shirt somewhere. The wet fabric was being pressed uncomfortably to the skin of his back and he hated it. “Sorry, should have introduced myself. Gilgamesh Holzfäller, new student. You?”

“Ardsley Wooster, transfer from Londinium,” the man said, shaking Gil’s hand firmly. Oh, so that was where the accent came from. Gil knew he recognized it. “If you don’t mind me asking…”

“I might,” Gil said, knowing his bemusement was plain on his face. “How can I know if I’ll mind if I don’t know the question yet?”

Wooster quirked a brow. “Alright then. I saw the change from the water and, while I can assume there’s sparkwork involved, I wanted to ask what you’d prefer to be referred to as before I made a fool of myself by calling you a title you dislike.”

“That’s fair,” Gil said. “And I don’t actually care much. Usually whatever you’d associate with a man, but if you want to refer to me as a woman when I look like this, I won’t care much. If it’s a day where I _do_ care, I’ll tell you.”

“Okay,” Wooster said slowly. “I can work with that.”

They stood in an awkward silence for a moment, and then Wooster said, “Should we leave before they try to make us late to class by asking too many questions?”

“Mechanics building?” Gil asked hopefully.

“Ethics first, I’m afraid,” Wooster said. “But that’s on the way, so we can head off together.”

Gil nodded, and they took off as the sound of roof-hopper police reached them.

o.o.o.o.o

“Holzfäller,” Gil told the man who would be telling him where to sit for the rest of the semester.

“Hm…” the man scanned down the list. “Jill?”

“Gil. Short for Gilgamesh.”

“Ah,” the man said. He looked Gil up and down for a moment, and then appeared to decide it was none of his business. “Third row, fourth seat.”

“Thank you,” Gil said. “By the way, is there anywhere I could grab some hot water? Or fresh clo—”

“Back wall, there’s taps,” the man cut him off. “There are others waiting for their assignments. Move along.”

Gil frowned, but did as suggested. He dropped of his books, already looking a little worse for the wear, at his new seat for the rest of the year. He rolled his neck as he headed to the back wall, and started loosening the corset.

“What are you _doing?”_ A scandalized whisper reached him.

He looked sideways to the young woman who’d said it. “I promise this will make sense in a second.”

She crossed her arms and glared at him. “Prove it.”

Gil shrugged and finished taking off the corset. He turned on the hot water and—okay, that wasn’t exactly _hot_, but it was warm enough to give a… sixty, maybe seventy percent chance of a change back.

He cupped his hands in the sink, just enough to grab some of the water, and splashed himself in the face. A sparkle of sensation shivered up his spine, and his proportions changed back.

“…what was that?” the girl asked, now sounding more fascinated than anything.

“Sparkwork from when I was a baby,” Gil said. He took off the shirt. “Should be able to dry this out faster now that I don’t have to worry about impropriety as much.”

“Wow,” she said, and then leaned back and looked him up and down. _“Wow.”_

“I know, it’s completely breaking a number of laws of physics and chemistry,” Gil said, shaking his head to get rid of some of the water. “My overall mass stays the same, at least, so I don’t have to worry about that.”

“That’s not what—never mind,” the girl sighed. She held out a hand. “Dominique Delacour. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Gilgamesh Holzfäller,” he said, shaking her hand. “You can call me Gil.”

“Oh, I can, can I?”

“Well, everyone else does, so…” He shrugged and looked down at his shirt, and then around the room. “Don’t suppose this room has anything I could use to dry this?”

“I haven’t seen anything,” Dominique said. “I’m pretty new here too, though. We could ask the TA?”

“Maybe,” Gil said. “Do you think the teacher would accept my excuse for not wearing a shirt?”

She eyed him up and down, this time far more critically than before, and then dug into her bag and pulled out an odd sheet of wax-treated canvas. “Rain poncho. It’s not exactly classroom material, but it’s better than nothing.”

“It’s going to rain later?”

“That’s what my mother said,” Dominique told him. “She’s usually pretty good about this sort of th—”

“HOLZFÄLLER?”

“Sit _down,_ Mr. Sturmvoraus.”

“I’m—”

“I do not care that you are a prince. You are in my classroom. _Sit. Down.”_

Gil gaped.

He saw the red hair and the furious eyes behind a pince nez and an angry flush of a young man who’d only just entered the room and, even as he made his way to his seat, was taking more pains to glare at Gil than to look where he was going.

“Tarvek?” He asked, stomach twisting.

Betrayal. Hope. Fondness. Anger. Hurt. A deep, age-old depression he’d thought he’d gotten over years ago.

“You know Prince Sturmvoraus?” Dominique asked.

Gil hesitated, and then drew himself up straight and looked Tarvek straight in the eye as he answered Dominique’s question.

“I used to, unfortunately.”

He decided to follow Dominique to share a table, since she was the one person he’d talked to so far, and tried his hardest to ignore the look of hurt that had crossed Tarvek’s face when Gil spoke.

He must have imagined it.


	2. Not a Twin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which (deeply ironic) misunderstandings abound.

“I’ve had better.”

Wooster rolled his eyes and reached for the cup. “Give it here, then.”

“No way!” Gil said, shielding it. “I didn’t say it was_ bad._ It just doesn’t live up to the claim that it’s the best whiskey in the world.”

“That doesn’t mean you should _complain_ about it,” Wooster told him, knocking his boot into Gil’s ankle. “It’s rude.”

“I’ve _made_ better,” Gil grumbled. He turned in his seat to lean back against the bar counter, spine comfortable against the wood, elbows spread wide to match.

Wooster covered his face. “Please button up a little more. People are staring.”

Gil looked down at his breasts, considered it, and did up one button. One.

“There,” he said, and Wooster glared at him like it was a personal insult.

“You’re enjoying this.”

“A little,” Gil admitted. “Paris is the first time I’ve really gotten to interact with people I didn’t grow up with. It’s interesting to figure out what makes people react and how.”

He arched his back, catalogued the reactions, and subsided. He took a sip of his drink and relaxed.

“I’m not _surprised_ by it, if that’s any help,” Gil said. “Just confirming things.”

“And if you get attacked while wearing a corset that doesn’t _actually_ provide any support?”

Gil shrugged. “I’ll deal.”

The door to the building opened, and Gil tensed as he recognized the red, red hair. Tarvek.

It took a few moments for Tarvek to notice Gil, and when he did, it was with an odd twitch to his face. He then apparently made a decision to not get involved, and went to sit down with someone Gil vaguely recognized as a classmate.

“You know him?” Wooster asked idly.

“Used to,” Gil said.

Tarvek didn’t look over much, engaged in conversation, but then he and his friend came up to the bar to order.

As they waited for their drinks, Gil watched, sidelong. Tarvek sighed, after a minute, and turned to him. “Is there something the matter, madame? You’ve been glaring at me since I came in.”

Gil’s brain screeched to a halt. Madame?

Wait, Tarvek didn’t _recognize _him?

Wooster saved him.

“You seemed rather taken aback by my friend when you entered the building,” Wooster offered. “We’ve been trying to figure out why, though I have my suspicions.”

A _blush?!_

Oh hey, Tarvek was embarrassed. “Ah, I was simply… that is to say, I haven’t encountered many women who choose to dress in such a fashion. It was uncommon in Sturmhalten, and I haven’t had much time to explore Paris in a more casual setting, on my previous trips.”

Oh.

Oh hell.

“That’s what I figured,” Wooster said. He elbowed Gil. “That enough for you?”

Gil shook himself and nodded. “Right. No hard feelings?”

Tarvek held out a hand. Gil shook it.

This was surreal.

“Tarvek,” he introduced himself.

“…Jillian,” Gil said, because clearly he was making _great decisions today._

Wooster made a noise of despair next to him.

Tarvek’s eyes snapped to him. “Is something wrong?”

“Not at all,” Wooster said tightly. “Actually, we were just about ready to leave, weren’t we, _Jillian?”_

Gil felt frozen. “Uh… yeah. Sorry, uh, your Highness? We need to get going. See you around?”

“Of course,” Tarvek said, and turned back to the bar to grab his drink.

Gil knocked back what was left of his and let Wooster drag him out the door and into a nearby alley.

The man whirled on him. _“What_ was that?”

He had no recourse but to shrug helplessly. “I have no idea.”

“Why would you _do_ that?”

“My mouth was saying things without input from my brain?”

“That’s not an excuse, Gil,” Wooster told him.

They’d known each other for three days.

Gil decided this man was going to be his new best friend, come hell or high water.

“I don’t _know,”_ Gil finally. “He saw me changing all the time as a kid, so I figured he knew and would recognize me but he _didn’t._ He was _polite_ and _apologized.”_

“And that’s odd?”

“Considering how he looked at me this morning, yeah!”

Wooster crossed his arms, opened his mouth, and—

** _BOOM_ **

Gil whirled around. Smoke, fire, rubble—he’d already known that was probably an explosion, but the visual evidence cinched it.

He started running.

“Gil, where are you—GIL!”

Wooster swore, barely audible, and chased after him.

o.o.o.o.o

“How are you not damaged?” Wooster demanded, keeping his eyes trained on Gil’s face.

Gil shrugged. “Always been this way; I’m hard to kill. Do you know anywhere nearby we could clean up? My apartment’s all the way on the other side of the river.”

Wooster watched him, unsubtly fascinated. “Your shirt is in shreds and you’re barely avoiding breaking laws of public decency, yet you aren’t even bleeding.”

“I’m sturdy,” Gil said.

“Clearly,” Wooster said drily. “There’s an exercise center a few blocks from here. It won’t do much for your shirt, but it’ll get the muck off, at least.”

There was a whistle from a gaggle of young men across the way, followed by cackles of amusement.

Gil twitched.

“You could fight them,” Wooster said. “Or, just maybe, you could Not.”

“I have a better idea,” Gil said. His father had always made a point of not picking a fight unless absolutely necessary, preferring to show the horrifying power of his armies and let the intimidation do the work without actually having to waste any of those resources. “Can I use you as a prop?”

Wooster took a step back. “Why?”

“Need to show them I can kick their asses,” Gil said bluntly. “I’m not going to do anything _weird.”_

“I’m starting to doubt you can do anything normal,” Wooster said. He shook his head. “Alright, let’s see it.”

Gil grinned and grabbed Wooster, lifting him over his head and then removing one hand for maximum showing off.

He turned to the catcallers and grinned wider. “You wanna fight?”

The catcallers scrammed.

Gil snorted and let Wooster drop from his hand and land, almost catlike, on his feet.

Wooster brushed off some of the dust and dirt, not that it did much to help, and then sighed. “We’d best get going. The center is this way. Come on, Holzfäller.”

o.o.o.o.o

A few days later, a classmate jogged up to him while he was with DuPree, trying to furtively argue her out of stabbing the proprietor of a nearby bakery for not giving her a larger discount on a slightly-stale muffin. The classmate eyed him and the pirate queen, probably wondering about why they’d both shut up so quickly when someone had come over to them.

“Hi,” Gil said. “Mira, right?”

She nodded slowly, and then seemed to decide that discretion was the better part of valor and asked, “You’re Gilgamesh Holzfäller, right?”

“I am,” Gil confirmed.

“Do you have a sister or something?” she asked.

Bang choked behind him as Gil’s mind raced.

Mira’s expression grew nervous. “Um, it’s just, Jean-Michel was with Prince Sturmvoraus the other day, and they said they met a woman who looks a lot like you, and Jean-Michel said you spoke with the same accent and spent time with that British transfer, so we thought that maybe she was your twin or something?”

Gil stared at her.

DuPree jumped forward and slung an arm over Gil’s shoulders and grinned with all her teeth. “Yep! They only found out they were related pretty recently, though, so they don’t know each other well.”

_DuPree. Why._

“Oh!” Mira brightened. “Okay, that explains a lot! Is she here for university too?”

“She’s in a different program,” DuPree ‘explained.’ “They don’t share any classes, but they look alike enough that, _sometimes,_ they take places for each other when one of them gets caught up in the madness place.”

Mira covered her mouth and giggled. “The twin thing?”

“The twin thing!” DuPree crowed. “Yes! That, exactly!”

Gil was going to murder her.

Quickly, so she didn’t escape.

“Ah, I need to tell Jean-Michel,” Mira said. “He’s been tearing his hair out over this. I’ll see you in class, Holzfäller!”

She ran off, and Gil waited about three seconds before rounding on DuPree.

“What in _blue fire—”_

“I was just playing along,” DuPree cooed. “How did you get yourself a sister, anyway? You’re not exactly hiding what you can do, kid.”

“Someone didn’t recognize me and I introduced myself with a fake name,” Gil said. “It wasn’t like I _planned_ it. Why did you plant _more fake ideas?”_

“Seemed like fun,” DuPree told him. “So… what’s the fake name?”

“…no, I can’t do this,” Gil said. He turned to head off after Mira. “I have to explain what happened, I can’t just let the rumors fly.”

“Sure you can,” DuPree said, grabbing his sleeve and preventing him from running off. “It’ll be fun! And it’ll make it harder for people to figure out your Dramatic Backstory.”

Gil hesitated, looking off after Mira and trying to come to a decision.

“It won’t last that long _anyway,” _Bang told him. “You don’t hide it. People will figure it out after a few weeks, just have fun with it for now. A little confusion is good for the soul. Makes it easier to kill them.”

Wait, what?

“Wait, what?” Gil asked.

“Well, yeah,” Bang said. She then proceeded to explain, as though to someone very young or possibly concussed, “A little confusion in _other_ people is good for _my_ soul, because it makes it easier for me to kill them.”

Gil considered this for a moment, and then said, “I’ve decided that I can’t consider your advice anything better than ‘dubious’ so I’m going to go talk to Colette.”

Bang rolled her eyes. “Of course you are.”

o.o.o.o.o

Colette laughed in his face.

Gil weathered it as best he could while trying to keep Bang from rearranging the nearest bookshelf.

“Who knows the truth?” she asked.

“Literally everyone who’s seen me get hit with water,” Gil said. “That’s got to be half my classmates, easy.”

“How many people think you have a twin sister?”

“I don’t know,” Gil admitted. “At least three. Probably more, with how rumors work.”

“Do you _want_ people to think you have a twin?” She prodded.

“No!” Gil immediately said. “I mean, I don’t care too much in general, but I don’t want to _encourage_ it.”

“Why not?” Colette asked. “Could be interesting.”

“Because I don’t… have one?” Gil said. “I don’t have a twin sister, Colette. You know this.”

“Sure,” Colette said. “But you’re the kind of person buried so deeply in secrets that adding another confounding variable can only help.”

Well, _yeah, _but…

“I don’t want to lie to my classmates about something like that,” he said, almost whining. “There’s already so much going on, I want to be as close to normal as I can.”

“Well, you fought a monster your first day as a student,” Colette told him. “That’s pretty normal, for here.”

“You should bring me next time,” Bang said, having taken to balancing one of her knives on the tip of another.

“I’ll think about it,” Gil said. “I don’t go monster-hunting, it just happens.”

“Hero-ing sometimes gets extra credit,” Colette offered. “And it’s a way to get out Her Majesty’s energy without getting her banned from Paris.”

DuPree seemed to be torn between ‘ew, heroes’ and ‘oh, violence!’

Violence won out.

“All said, I don’t think it’s too big of a deal,” Colette said. “If having a specific person believe it bothers you, just tell them, and otherwise just… let it happen. Rumors are impossible to stifle once they start, anyway.”

Gil gave DuPree a dirty look.

“You’re the one that started it,” she pointed out. “Or was I the one that introduced you as ‘Jillian’?”

Gil buried his face in his hands and groaned.

“If it bothers you that much, you can just talk to the people who started the rumors and explain what happened,” Colette said, tone softer now. “I’ll even help.”

“I just don’t want to lie to people more than I have to,” Gil muttered. “I don’t mind strangers making that mistake. If half of Paris thought it was true, I wouldn’t care, so long as I didn’t go to class with that half.”

“How’re you going to tell that Sturmvoraus kid?” DuPree asked. “You don’t exactly get along.”

Gill flinched. “I’ll figure something out.”

o.o.o.o.o

He didn’t get a chance to do that. Tarvek avoided the _hell_ out of him, no matter the form he was in at the time. He looked more awkward than angry, when it was ‘Jillian’ he saw, so Gil figured he was still under the impression that they were separate people and not just two different appearances for one Sparky person. Probably he didn’t want to interact with the person he saw as Gil’s family, but felt odd and guilty over the decision since it wasn’t like ‘Jillian’ had been the one that tattled when they were eight.

He managed to hunt down Mira and Jean-Michel and tell them the truth, that he’d spoken without thinking at the bar because he used to know Tarvek and was too thrown to think straight, and that Bang had decided to have a little fun at his expense when Mira had asked.

Mira turned pale and told him that she’d already been ‘explaining’ the twins to anyone who wondered, and Gil winced.

“Well, too late to do anything about that now,” he said. “I don’t care about most people making the mistake; I just don’t want to be lying to the people I spend time with.”

“Completely understandable,” Jean-Michel said. “Er, do you want me to tell Prince Sturmvoraus?”

Gil winced. “Tarvek and I have… history.”

Mira gasped, hands going to her face. “Oh dear, were you _together?”_

Gil blanched. “We were _eight.”_

She subsided, abashed.

“We used to be friends, then he did something stupid and I kind of got him kicked off of Castle Wulfenbach,” Gil admitted. “I still hold a grudge against him and he still holds a grudge against me. He was so polite at the bar that when I realized he didn’t recognize me, I just said the first thing that came to mind and… is snowballed from there.”

“Ah,” Jean-Michel said. He did not follow up this comment of astounding wisdom with further advice.

“I should be the one to tell him,” Gil said. “I can’t _catch_ him for long enough to tell him, but as annoying as he is, I _guess_ he deserves the truth.”

“A grudge, huh?” Mira asked. She patted him on the shoulder, reaching awkwardly up to do so, given that his shoulder was several inches higher than her head. “You’ll do okay.”

o.o.o.o.o

Gil looked out the window and realized that it was going to be a very hot and muggy day today.

He also recognized that he’d fallen asleep with breasts the night before, and remembered that the building’s hot water heater had broken the night before and probably wasn’t fixed yet.

Sparking out, or even experimentation in general, wasn’t allowed in student housing for insurance reasons, so it wasn’t like he had the option of heating up water quickly himself. He had a stovetop and a pot and not enough time to actually use them.

Which meant dealing with the humid heat while without the option of just wearing a loose shirt and the lightest fabric pants he could get away with.

This was what he needed DuPree for, he figured. Learning how to dress for the weather instead of being all sticky with sweat and skin pressing against other skin and today was going to be _awful,_ wasn’t it?

Surely one of those corsets was for summer wear…

o.o.o.o.o

He had to save Tarvek.

_He. _Had to _save._

_Tarvek._

While the man still thought his name was Jillian.

Someone had a very unfortunate sense of humor up there.

Tarvek readjusted his pince nez and bemoaned a ripped sleeve as Gil kicked at the downed clank to make sure it was done for, properly.

“Miss Holzfäller,” Tarvek started, and Gil groaned. “I’m really quite thankful for your help, but it was unnecessary. I know you and your brother are prone to heroics, but I’m perfectly capable of—”

“Listen, I don’t have a brother,” Gil said, turning around and looking at Tarvek. “I just—DuPree thought it was funny. I’ve been trying to catch you for three weeks to explain.”

Tarvek stared at him like a deer in the errant glow of a death ray that was still cooling down.

“Right,” he finally said, voice tight. “I—yes, I suppose I understand. I really must be going to my class, however. Good day, madame, I’ll see you again.”

It took a few seconds, during which Tarvek disappeared with _stunning _speed, for Gil to realize he’d only managed to convey half the explanation.

Fine.

Whatever.

Next time.


	3. It's a Beautiful Day in the Gayborhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Queer communities are everywhere; sometimes they're just easier to find than others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware: there be Original Characters ahead, ye who entere here. IDK if any of them are going to be consistently in the story after this chapter, but I had fun naming them.

“—can’t just be a neuro-graft, right?” Quentin asked, a bored look in their eyes. “There has to be a processor before it gets to the actual brain, or you’re risking the neurons.”

“Everything gets fried,” Yelena sing-songed. Gil couldn’t see her face, since her hair was in the way as she set something down on the table, but he could imagine the smile on her face. She stood up again, ice-blond curls falling back and no longer hiding the mess of scarring that twisted her grin. “Could it be built in, do you think? The Master’s been alive so long, after all. He must be more machine than man.”

Quentin rolled their eyes, and Marielle giggled behind her hand.

“Well, we all know _that,”_ Katarina said, more than a little archly. “But does that machinery cover the stem of the brain?”

“No way to know for sure without getting ourselves arrested,” Yelena said. She threw herself back on the couch next to Quentin and curled into their side. “What about you, new kid? Any ideas?”

“None I have any faith in,” Gil told her. “I’ve only been here a few weeks. I’m sure any ideas I have are things you’ve already covered, being here as many years as you have.”

“Fine, but you better have _something_ to contribute next time,” Yelena ordered. “Right, Q?”

“I literally couldn’t care less.”

“See? Q agrees.”

There was a knock at the door, and Marielle sprang to her feet to answer it. Gil watched her progress across the room idly, most of his attention on the fight that Katarina had picked with Humbert about whether sewage piping was acceptably large to afford the kind of wiring he said was needed.

As it turned out, Katarina knew a _lot_ about the Parisian sewage system.

“My undergraduate advisor was Professor Hugo,” she snapped. “May he rest in peace and all, but you did _not_ leave his presence without adequate knowledge on the sewers!”

“Why?” Gil asked, fascinated by this specific angle.

“He wrote a book on it,” Quentin explained. “Or at least put far, far too much information on it into the book.”

“Because?”

Quentin shrugged. Gil wondered how they were dealing with Yelena’s weight being perched so precariously on their leg. Hopefully she’d move soon; that looked like a recipe for pins and needles on Quentin’s part.

“We have a new friend~!” Marielle informed them, sounding very excited. “I brought him from the draping class, you know, the fashion elective? He had such a way with the velvets, but—”

“A _designer?” _Humbert asked.

_“But,”_ Marielle stressed, glaring at him. “He rebuilt one of the machines on the spot! Very sparky.”

“My focus is on microclockwork and integration of mechanics into biological systems,” a very, very familiar voice said.

Gil turned, met Tarvek’s eyes, and—

Well, to say that they both froze on the spot and glared at each other would be a touch dramatic.

Accurate, though.

Marielle looked between the two of them, smile slipping away into something questioning and oddly crafty. “You two know each other?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Used to.”

Tarvek’s face twitched, and he started to turn for the door. “Actually, I think I’ll be le—”

“No!” Marielle said, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the couch. “You don’t have to pay attention to each other. Just chat with us!”

“Not like Holzfäller was saying much anyway,” Humbert pointed out.

Gil and Tarvek looked at each other for a long moment. Gil was struck by the sudden, unfortunately strong urge to drag Tarvek outside and use it as a chance to explain everything. He would not do that, because he wasn’t a total idiot, but he kind of wanted to.

“Fine,” Tarvek finally said.

Gil nodded, and the agreement to ignore the hell out of each other was made.

Maybe he’d get lucky and the cold water curse would kick in?

o.o.o.o.o

The water magnetism didn’t kick in.

When the meeting ended, Gil grabbed his things and headed immediately for the door. Tarvek was moving fast, but Gil was faster, and he caught up with Tarvek a few yards outside of the building the club had been meeting in.

“Sturmvoraus, just _wait,”_ Gil said, grabbing for the edge of Tarvek’s sleeve.

The man in question pulled away, features twisting up in disgust. “Don’t damage the lace, you—you—”

“Insult me or whatever, I don’t care,” Gil said. “Listen, I need to talk to you. The whole… twins misunderstanding, I—”

“Ah, you mean where you took your fun by convincing half the school you had a sister that doesn’t exist? That young woman did not deserve to be _dragged into_ your—”

“Would you just listen to me?” Gil asked. Ugh, this was _not_ going to plan. He just—

“I have better things to do,” Tarvek said, turning on his heel and—vanishing?

Great.

Just great.

_Ugh._

o.o.o.o.o

“Jeez, Gil, maybe you just need to chat with someone.”

Gil was pretty sure the only person he needed to chat with was Tarvek, but whatever. Zola’s opinions weren’t _terrible,_ so maybe he could think about it.

“He just won’t let me talk to him,” Gil groaned. “For five minutes. Even two. I just need to talk to him to explain what happened.”

“Don’t you think your life would be easier if you just… found a way to fix this whole thing?” She prodded. “Just stuck to one all the time?”

Gil made a face. “No. I mean, it _would_ probably make my life easier, but I’d hate it, you know?”

Zola nodded attentively and poured him a little more of the weird, carbonated banana whiskey the bar was trying to pass off as the next big thing. “It’d be easier to run, too. And fight. Imagine if you’d been trying to hold your chest down when you saved me from Herr Janis!”

“I’d have been fine,” Gil said. He shrugged. “It hasn’t slowed me down that much in other fights, so I think it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal.”

“Okay,” Zola said. “Anyway, I—oh! Ulrich’s returned, how _delightful!_ Oh, you don’t mind if I go say hello to him, do you, dear? He’s been telling me the most amazing stories about—”

“Have fun,” Gil said, trying not to laugh at how utterly eager she was to talk to a guy that was wearing a coat in a green and pink so vivid that he’d almost compare it to Mme. Pillet’s neon tube lighting.

“Thank you, darling!” Zola crowed, planting a kiss on his cheek before he could stop her and waltzing off towards the man in question.

Gil absentmindedly tried to scrub the lipstick marking off of his cheek and wondered if maybe it was time to leave, now that he no longer had anyone to talk to.

He might have, even though he could have pulled the papers out of his bag and started trying to untangle his homework for Yeltzin’s Neo-Vibrational Biophysics seminar. Unfortunately for that plan, or fortunately, depending on the point of view, Gil was startled by what seemed like half a bottle of sparkling apple cider pouring down his back, ice cubes and all.

He looked down at his chest and sighed. Did up three buttons. Stood and turned and tried to figure out how to tell this frantically-apologizing couple—a little older than him, but much less muscled—that it was fine, it happened, and it was probably more his sparky background’s fault than their mistake.

Gil grimaced at the sticky feeling at the back of his now-oddly-straining shirt. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I have no idea how that happened, I _swear_ I was looking where I was going—” the shorter of the two kept talking, ignoring the taller’s frantic shoulder tapping.

“No, seriously, don’t worry about it,” Gil said. “I’m cursed. Water will hit even when it doesn’t make sense. It’s some sparky thing. If it has water in it, it’s liable to happen.”

They both stared at him. The taller one asked, “Seriously.”

Well, ‘asked.’ The tone was a little flat for that.

“Sparky nonsense happening since I was a kid,” Gil said, voice much drier than his back. “Gilgamesh Holzfäller. I can prove that it does something weird, even if I can’t prove the curse part.”

The shorter one gaped at him. “Wait, you’re the—the one that they were saying keeps changing bodies!”

Gil blinked, nonplussed. “That… makes it sound like I’m possessing people.”

“No, I meant—”

“I know,” Gil said, a tad bit uncomfortable with a stranger gesturing at his chest. “I know what you meant.”

The taller one was staring at his chest with an indecipherable look that edged on… anger?

“Something wrong?” He asked.

Orange eyes snapped up to meet his, and—oh hey, flinching. Flinching was bad.

“It’s nothing.”

Gil waited for an explanation, but none was forthcoming.

“Do you like it?” the shorter one asked him. “Switching your body like that?”

Gil shrugged. “I’ve never known anything else. I think I’d be more upset if it _stopped,_ given that. I do wish I had a bit more control, because clothes that fit one way don’t always fit the other, but I’ve been like this as long as I remember.”

“So do you prefer one of the other?”

So many questions.

“Only when it’s pragmatic?” Gil offered. “Breast support is a pain, but that’s the only thing that really makes one better than the other.”

Why were they elbowing each other?

“I’m sorry,” he said, when it became clear that he wasn’t going to get any answers until he’d asked some questions himself. “Is there a _point_ to these, or…?”

“Just one,” the short one said cheerfully. “So, you don’t really identify as male or female, right? Or do you prefer being referred to one way or another?”

“Not consistently. It varies day by day. Usually I don’t care about pronouns, if that’s what your asking. If they aren’t trying to be an asshole about it, I’m usually fine with anything. Some days I do care, but that’s only once every week or two.”

Shorty’s grin grew wider, and then that grin was turned to the friend. “See? Toldja.”

Gil waited another moment, and then said, “So. I never got your names.”

“Oh shit,” the short one said, as if only _just_ realizing the oversight. “I guess I got distracted by the whole… drink situation.”

“And asking invasive questions,” the taller one said. Gil pretended not to hear that.

“I’m Dana,” the short one introduced. “This is Annalise. You can call her Mme. van der Berg if you annoy her, though.”

“I’ll be sure to avoid that,” Gil said. He held out a hand and Dana grabbed it to enthusiastically shake. “You’re students?”

“I am,” Annalise said. “Dana’s apprenticed to a silversmith nearby.”

“Great way to make jewelry for my favorite girl,” Dana cooed, elbowing Annalise in the ribs again. The woman in question rolled her eyes.

“Ignore Dana,” she told Gil. “They’re incorrigible.”

Dana giggled in a way that was more snort than laugh, barely even putting up the pretense to put a hand over their mouth.

Gil cracked a grin. “People say the same thing about me. You’re together, then?”

“We are,” Annalise confirmed. “May I ask a more direct question?”

“Sure.”

“You fall into the… general scope of people who do not fit into the… societal norm for gender and attraction, even without the curse—”

“Enchantment. Experiment.” Gil paused. “Just the water part is a curse. The shape changing isn’t.”

Dana nodded. “But you fall into the category of what people wouldn’t consider normal, even without your body changing the way it does, right?”

Gil shrugged. “I haven’t put too much thought into it, but I suppose so.”

Dana grinned brightly. “Great! If you want a place to stretch those wings, Annalise and I know a few bars that cater primarily to the… musical theater crowd.”

Gil blinked.

“The theater community,” Annalise explained, rather patient and droll now that Gil had passed whatever test she’d been thinking of, “especially here in Paris, is overflowing people like yourself. Not the shifting, of course—haven’t really seen that before—but the homosexuals, the crossdressers, those who reject gender and the roles that come with it, they tend to gather around there.”

“We just came here because it’s more convenient tonight,” Dana added. “But we can show you a few of them tomorrow if you want!”

They seemed very chipper. Excited.

“Looking forward to it,” he said. “Where should I meet you?”

o.o.o.o.o

“You didn’t know?” Wooster asked. “You’ve been here for _weeks.”_

“I’m busy!” Gil protested. “I have classes, and there’s a whole lot of rogue sparkwork that I have to take down—”

“That’s what the gendarmes are for.”

Gil shot him a look, and then went back to trying to lace the light corset that Bang had foisted in their direction that first week. Today was already such a strange day in terms of internal gender that Gil felt a little tempted to actually dress the way women—at least the kind of women that helped fight giant clanks when the molecular engineering building got a little too carried away during the collaboration with the staff from the hyper-mechanics labs—dressed here in Paris. Different lines to the jacket, an open-robe overskirt on the trousers, because skirts were a pain to fight in, but long, split-front overskirts were acceptable, and a different pair of shoes because, just like everything else, Gil’s feet could _make do_ when a shift happened, but it just wasn’t that comfortable.

Shoes were harder to carry around, though. Actual emergency clothes were easy enough to carry around, but the kinds of sturdy boots that Gil favored were heavy and bulky, and Gil preferred to fill that space with textbooks.

“I’m pretty sure you don’t need to dress up unless you’re going on stage,” Wooster pointed out.

“I wasn’t going to _dress up,”_ Gil said in minor disgust. “That’s so much more effort for women, which is what I currently look like. I don’t have the time or patience to paint my face or do my hair.”

“That’s not really what I meant,” Wooster said drily. “I meant that I’ve rarely seen you in anything other than a plain shirt and some trousers. Maybe a vest once or twice. Yet here you are, wearing a calf-length jacket and ruffled collar.”

Gil rolled their eyes. “I can have taste sometimes, Wooster.”

“Of course you can,” he soothed. “You look very fashionable.”

Gil threw a paperweight. They didn’t miss, but Wooster caught the half-hearted throw with minimal effort and a raised eyebrow.

“Was that necessary?”

“No, but it made me feel better,” Gil grumbled. “Hey, do you want to come with me? I have no idea what I’m walking into and I might feel more comfortable with someone I already know.”

“I don’t think I’d really fit in,” Wooster said. “I am as I was born, and while I’ve on occasion found myself attracted to men, the vast bulk of my activities and interests have been in women.”

“That’s still something,” Gil pointed out.

“I also _wasn’t invited,_ Holzfäller,” Wooster pointed out. “Go have fun. Tell me all about it when you get back.”

“Fine,” Gil said, slinging a pack over their shoulder and heading for the door. They paused, and turned. “You do remember this is _my_ apartment, right? You probably shouldn’t be here when I’m not.”

Wooster looked up from the book he’d found somewhere, and then dipped his head to keep reading.

“Ardsley. Please. What do you think is going to happen if DuPree shows up and I’m not here but you are?”

Wooster took a moment to process that, and then vanished out an open window.

The window had been closed and locked five minutes ago. Gil was starting to get used to Parisian dramatics, including the ever-popular self-defenestration exit.

Wooster wasn’t even _native_ to Paris, but he’d picked up on the habits pretty quickly. Gil considered just _how_ quickly, and then decided they’d think about that some other time.

The meeting was one block over from the opera house, and Gil didn’t have trouble finding Annalise, with her mass of vividly orange curls standing out over the crowd. She was already tall, but letting the hair loose from the low ponytail they’d seen yesterday added another four inches, at least.

They jogged over and gave her a nod, and then looked around. “Where’s Dana?”

“Running late at the smithy, I’d guess. They’ll meet us there.”

“Lead the way,” Gil said, not quite hiding their excitement. It was probably going to be fun, right? And Father couldn’t be too upset about Gil trying something new, when that was the whole _point_ of this entire situation. “How big is it, by the way?”

“The entire neighborhood covers… four or five blocks in any direction from the center,” Annalise told them. “It’s not just musical theater, of course. Musicians, artists, actors creators of all sorts. Plenty of art sparks, which is fine enough for the rest of us; they’re less destructive on the average, and the science sparks tend to be in several arrondissements on the other side of the Seine. We do have one or two sparks that combined the two, and have their fun with the lighting or sound systems in the theaters, but there are entire herds of minions to help them _and_ keep them from doing something…”

“Monumentally lacking in sense?” Gil offered.

She snorted. “Exactly.”

“You know I’m a spark, right?” Gil asked.

Annalise paused, turned to look them up and down, and then shrugged. “I suppose it takes all types.”

Gil wrinkled their nose. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Whatever you think it should mean,” she said, because that was definitely an answer. “We’re almost there, by the way. Can you tell?”

Gil looked around, and didn’t see much that seemed any different from the rest of Paris. “I suppose… the makeup is heavier on some people?”

Annalise laughed at them.

Laughed.

“I’ll give it another block or two,” she said, the amusement still weighty in her voice. “I guess it can be a little difficult to pick out the changes when you haven’t been in the community for very long. You were raised on the flying castle, right? Wulfenbach’s?”

Gil nodded.

“Probably didn’t have much a community for us _deviants_ up there.” She was still smiling. Probably not too serious about the whole ‘deviants’ thing, then? “You can learn to pick up on who’s advertising themselves as something, after a bit. How they button their jackets, their choice in tie, the particular shade of the flower in their hair. It’ll tell you if they’re part of this community, if they’re only interested in others of the same gender, or in anyone at all, or no one, or if the body they were born with is perhaps not what they choose to be now.”

“Makes sense,” Gil said. “Does the rest of Paris know how to read those signs?”

“If they care to,” she said. “Most don’t. A handful learn them for reasons that are less than well-intentioned, but the Master isn’t happy about such things and neither is most of his family, especially since his favorite daughter started visiting us on the regular.”

“Neat,” Gil said.

Wait, neat?

_Neat?_

Ugh.

Annalise snorted, and then held up one arm. “This ribbon stitched across the cuff, especially in this color, describes how I identify; I am a woman, though I was not declared such at birth. Meanwhile, the tuxedo stripe up the right arm of my jacket is a way to inform people that, while I have my tastes in partners, gender is never a deciding factor.”

“Something like wearing a family crest, but more… personal,” Gil tried to summarize.

Annalise smiled. “Precisely. You could also compare it to mourning bands, or religious jewelry, or political pins. Humans rather enjoy showing which group they belong to. Watch your step, now, _Rafaela’s Theater_ has an uneven stair.”

Gil followed her in, and found the building near-empty.

“Misha!” Annalise called. “Mind if I show someone around?”

“WHAT FOR?” Probably-Misha called back. Gil couldn’t see anyone shouting, but the angle suggested heavily that they’d find him somewhere in the ceiling.

“New kid hasn’t hit queer country yet!”

Gil wisely kept their mouth shut until Annalise waved them to follow after her, and started explaining what the theater was used for.

Apparently, some Parisian crossdressers had decided to build a show around extravagant dancing in even more extravagant costumes a decade and a half ago, and now there were three or four theaters and bars in the arrondissement that had picked up the performance style. They called it ‘drag’ and Gil was a little curious to see what that looked like.

They sat down to grab a drink and watch the theater crew prep for the night’s show, and then Dana crashed in through an open window, seemingly unharmed and entirely too chipper for Gil to take without warning.

“WHAT’D I MISS?”

“Everything,” Annalise answered without skipping a beat. “You’re late.”

“Iocasta wanted me to stay late,” Dana waved her off. “So, so, so? You feel like watching the show with us tonight? I hear Lady Blues-and-Bellum is on the setlist.”

“Oh, I hadn’t heard about that,” Annalise mused. “She’s _good.”_

o.o.o.o.o

So _apparently,_ drag was great. Paris’s community of supposed sexual deviants had gone ahead and invented something called ‘voguing,’ which Gil hadn’t heard of before, but found weird and intriguing. The costuming was also far beyond the pale; the makeup artist was probably a minor spark, in their opinion. Dana had explained that most of the performers were men who were mostly solid in their identity _as_ men, but performed as women as a way of breaking the social constraints of gender roles, rather than developing a gender identity contrasting what they’d been given as a child.

“I feel like you’d be good at it,” Dana mused, squinting at them. “You’re pretty bouncy, right? Saw you doing some heroics stuff, so you’d get the acrobatics down pat.”

“I’m not much of a dancer, not like this,” Gil told them. “Or a performer. I can take part in a ballroom dance, but I’m not about to get on a stage.”

“Pity,” Dana said.

Gil suddenly became aware of Annalise watching them far too closely, and then realized almost immediately that she was actually looking over their shoulder.

There was nothing there when they turned.

“What was that about?” they asked.

“Princess Xerxsephnia likes to sneak down every once in a while,” Annalise explained. “And she seemed to be keeping _quite_ an eye on you.”

“Methinks someone has a crush,” Dana cooed, and then stole a slice of pickled cabbage from Gil’s plate. “Marry high, my friend; she’s _loaded.”_

“Maybe not,” Gil said. “I don’t even know who she is, for one thing.”

“Details,” Dana dismissed. “Be the sugar baby we all wish to be.”

“Hm. No. Don’t think so,” Gil said. They looked down at their cup. “This is _very_ good bourbon.”

“It is,” Dana agreed, and then immediately rushed on to the next topic. “So, real talk: has anyone recognized _you_ yet?”

“Why would they?”

“Jealousy,” Annalise said. “If anyone’s heard of your changing and has some degree of distaste for the form their own body takes as far as gender goes, they are likely very jealous of you. I know I certainly am.”

“I don’t know how to respond to that.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” she assured them. “Just something to be aware of. Those like me, who want the body we identify with, we need surgeries to reach that. All the trustworthy doctors are too expensive, and all the affordable ones are… well, sparks who would take one’s presence on the operating table as carte blanche to add something _unexpected_ to the mix for fun.”

Gil winced. “Ah. I can see how that would be a problem.”

“There’s a handful that do both cheap and trustworthy,” she explained. “Or, well, more affordable, at least. The waiting lists there are ages long, though.”

“A little easier for me,” Dana said. “I can just get away with binding for a few years yet.”

“I would offer,” Gil said. “But I only just started my medical studies, so—”

“Please stay away from my body until you have a degree,” Annalise said firmly.

“Absolutely,” Gil agreed. “I wouldn’t even think on it.”

“Good,” Annalise said. “I’ll check back in a few years.”

“Waiting on it,” Gil agreed.

o.o.o.o.o

Gil finally caught Tarvek.

Mostly because Tarvek was on fire.

But that was an easy fix.

(The talking? Not so much.)


	4. Get Wound, Sturmvoraus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Really, it's all Colette's fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: buzzed makeouts (not enough to impede decision-making), more OCs, and discussion of sex/romance from the perspective of a character on the ace spectrum, which shouldn't REALLY warrant a warning but people are tiring.
> 
> Also, hi! Ace-spec author here, writing a scene from the perspective of a character on a similar but still slightly different part of the asexuality/aromance spectrum. Please keep that in mind when you question why the scene is there.

Gil punched at least three different rampaging constructs in the face while Tarvek, for some unfathomable reason, continued to scream and pat at the flames on his clothes and hair instead of just jumping into the fountain like a rational person.

So Gil kicked him in during a spare moment, like a much better friend than he actually was, and went back to fighting constructs.

Tarvek came up screeching, but by that point the spark that had caused the entire problem had shown up with some kind of sleeping gas that only affected the constructs—and one particular bystander, but it looked like a couple medical students were already handling that—so Gil turned and grabbed Tarvek by the wrist, yanking him out of the water. Somehow, Gil was not hit by enough water for it to trigger a change.

“You _threw me_ into the _fountain?!”_ Tarvek shrieked.

“You’re welcome,” Gil said.

Tarvek spluttered.

“You were on fire,” Gil pointed out. “What was I supposed to do?”

“I had it under control!”

Gil just stared at him.

Tarvek went red, and started pulling at his clothes. “Now I’ll have to go all the way back to Grandmother’s house to get this dried out.”

Gil lit up. “Or we could—”

“TALK!” Colette shouted over, which really just ruined Gil’s amazing idea to bring over the dehydrator from the sweetshop and hook it up to the soap press from three doors over. Also, where had she come from?

“I think not,” Tarvek said, adjusting his coat in a way that did nothing to salvage his dignity, and headed in the opposite direction.

Gil jogged after him. “Can we just talk?”

“No.”

“Sturmvoraus, I need to—”

“Need to _what?”_ Tarvek demanded, whirling with a distinct rage in his eyes.

“I need to _talk_ to you,” Gil said. “There was a misunderstanding, and—please don’t interrupt, I _know_ it was at least partly my fault—and I clarified part of it, but there’s still something I’ve been trying to explain for… weeks, I think? It might be a month now.”

Tarvek crossed his arms.

“You’re mad at me.”

“You just kicked me into a fountain. I have reason to be annoyed.”

“You were _on fire.”_

“I was handling it!”

“You’re both idiots,” Colette said, appearing out of nowhere. She had a bucket in her hands, and was smiling with a cheer that bode ill. She held it up a little. “Gil, did I guess right?”

“Yeah,” Gil said, a tiny knot loosening in his stomach. “It was that.”

Tarvek’s grip on his upper arms tightened, and that simmering rage got a little hotter.

Maybe he’d already heard and was just hoping it wasn’t true.

“Okay, I’m going to preface this by saying that I initially gave you false information because my mouth acted without my brain and I’ve been trying to fix the mistake since I made it, and I _am_ sorry for lying to your face that one time, but _only_ that one time.”

“I am going to set _you_ on fire,” Tarvek promised.

“You can try!” Colette said, still far too cheery. She hefted the bucket. “Gil, now?”

Gil waited a moment, just to make sure Tarvek wasn’t about to run away, and then checked to make sure his shirt wasn’t in a bad enough shape to violate public decency laws. He did up a button, and held out his arms.

Colette threw the bucket of water over him, and the change happened, and Tarvek stiffened.

Gil waited a moment, and then asked again, “So, can we talk?”

Tarvek turned heel and left.

Gil drooped.

“Well,” Colette said, propping the bucket on her hip. “That went well.”

“Shut up, please.”

\--

Wooster sat in the delicate chair of the café, sipping his espresso, and waited for Gil to stop pouting.

Gil knew this because she could see it in Wooster’s face. Gil herself was sitting on another of the delicate café chairs, straddling the back and resting her chin on her crossed arms on the chairback. And yes, pouting.

“You can’t have expected him to take it well.”

Gil pulled her head back and dropped her head so that it was now her forehead on her forearms. She let out a small, grit-teethed scream.

“You already don’t like each other,” Wooster pointed out. “Why does it even matter if he’s angry at you?”

Gil lifted her head just enough to glare at him. “Isn’t it enough that I’m not happy with it? Do I need a _reason?”_

“I’m trying to help, here, but if you’d prefer I stop talking…”

“No, don’t do that,” Gil sighed. “I know you’re trying to help. Sturmvoraus is… we were best friends, as children. And then there was an incident where I… how do I put this… I reported on some of his spying habits to the Baron after we got into trouble. I thought he’d just get no dessert for a week or get yelled at by the teacher—_everyone_ was spying, so it wasn’t like it was a great big deal—but instead he got kicked out of the school and sent home.”

“And he resents you.”

“And he resents me.”

“Congratulations on sounding like the start of a penny sparkly,” Wooster told her. “Are you going to drink your coffee or not?”

“Let me _wallow,_ you cruel bastard.”

“I’m entirely legitimate, thank you.”

Gil lifted her head and glared at him.

“Why do you even _care?”_ Wooster asked. “You aren’t friends. You hated him on sight.”

“I just don’t want him angry at me for something I spent a long time trying to fix,” Gil said.

“Gil…” Wooster said, and then reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “That’s not your decision to make. You know that, right? You _did_ lie to him, at first. Even if you tried to fix it later, he’s got a right to feel upset about you making a fool of him.”

“Ugh,” Gil groaned. “This is just like when we were eight.”

“You got him kicked out of a place children would consider the most interesting place on the continent.”

“For good reason!”

“You _just_ said everyone was spying. Did you get them caught, too?”

“No, because I saw _what happens_ when I report that sort of thing,” Gil said.

“But you can see how it might make him mad.”

“Stop trying to rationalize his feelings when I’m having emotions,” Gil told him.

Wooster just sipped his espresso. “I’m just trying to point out that you can feel upset about this, but you can’t begrudge _him_ for being upset either.”

“You’re terrible at this.”

“Oh, just drink your coffee. We can go fight a monster or something. That’ll lift your spirits, right?”

“Maybe…”

\--

“You need to work on your blocking, kid!”

“DuPree, that’s not—DuPree!”

“You know,” Wooster said, his voice delightfully, infuriatingly even. “When I said we could go fight a monster, I didn’t mean _her.”_

“See?” DuPree said, throwing a knife in Wooster’s direction. Thankfully, he dodged. _“That guy_ gets it.”

“And oh, how I wish I didn’t,” Wooster sighed.

“You’re not _helping!”_ Gil yelled over.

“Not trying to!” Wooster called back. “Madame, may I inform you that she’s _still_ moping over the incident with Sturmvoraus?”

DuPree gave Gil a disgusted look. “Ew. You’re not _mooning,_ are you?”

“No, she’s just desperate for people to like her,” Wooster said, proving that he was, in fact, a complete traitor of the highest order.

“That’s even _worse!”_ DuPree crowed. She kicked Gil square in the chest, and Gil thanked her lucky stars she didn’t have breasts at the moment, because _ow. _“I mean, yeah, okay, at least you don’t have taste so bad that you _like_ that guy—he’s so _pathetic_—but come on, really? You actually care about his opinion?”

She swept a knife perilously close to Gil’s femoral artery. “Stop trying to kill me!”

“Nah!” DuPree said with a grin that was far too happy for anyone’s comfort. Thank god they’d found an abandoned warehouse instead of risking her doing this _on the streets. _“You need to get better at this if you’re going to keep trying to be a hero! I don’t even _get_ why you want that, but you’re gonna die if you don’t learn how to avoid _THIS!”_

Gil had to do some rather creative acrobatics to avoid the two dozen knives DuPree threw at her. “Not everyone is as crazy as you!”

“Just needs to be one for you to need it!”

“Yeah, _and that one is you!”_

Gil passed by Wooster, who was sitting on an empty crate and reading the newspaper. “Help me!”

He looked up, met her eyes, and turned back to the newspaper. “I don’t think so.”

“Wooster!”

“I’m not getting in the way of Bangladesh DuPree, Gil,” Wooster said. He turned a page. “I have a self-preservation instinct.”

DuPree cackled.

\--

The universe probably hated Gil, as evidenced by many things, such as the fact that he still had no idea who his mother was, had needed to hide his identity since childhood for fear of his life, and most recently, the fact that the professor had paired him up with _Tarvek Sturmvoraus _for the next project.

A project which was going to last two weeks.

Three classes a week.

Two hours per class.

Gil was going to _die._

He tried to get it fixed, of course. Went up to the professor after class and explained that he and Sturmvoraus had a rough history and it would likely impact the quality of their work.

“Oh, I’m well aware of the matter,” the professor said, and Gil’s heart sank. Dropped right to his stomach, it did. “Mademoiselle Voltaire stopped by earlier today and told me that it would be good for the two of you to work out your differences.”

Wow.

Gil now had a reason to challenge Colette to a duel. Ten paces and death rays and ‘to the death’ and all.

Not even the Master of Paris could stop him.

“Now, I suggest you go sit with Prince Sturmvoraus,” the professor advised. “Or I will be forced to start docking points.”

Gil did an about face and headed towards Tarvek’s table, grabbing his stuff on the way. He hadn’t left yet, for whatever reason, and—oh look, Dominique was watching them. Gil offered her a pained grimace, and she laughed and waved on her way out.

Schadenfreude, thy name is classmates.

Gil set his books down on Tarvek’s desk, and didn’t shy away from the purely hate-filled glare that met him.

“Colette suggested we get paired up,” Gil said, as calmly as he could manage. “And we’ll lose points if we try to get it changed.”

Tarvek put his face in his hands and swore. Colorfully. In several languages.

“I can say one thing that might make it worse or might make it better,” Gil said.

Tarvek glared at him. “Alright, then. Let’s hear it.”

“I thought you already knew.”

“…are you pulling my leg?”

“We were best friends as kids, Sturmvoraus,” Gil pointed out. “I’ve been like this since I was—well, since I was taken in by the Baron. You saw the water magnetism curse in action several times. I thought you’d just also seen the changes.”

“We were _eight,”_ Sturmvoraus sneered. “_What_ changes?”

Gil winced. “Well, yes. I was wearing pants. There wasn’t really much to see. I realized that recently, just… not early enough to realize you didn’t recognize me at the bar.”

Tarvek raised an eyebrow incredulously. “What, is _that_ your excuse for making a fool of me?”

“You threw me off and I panicked!”

Tarvek stared at him, and then dropped his head on the desk. “I’m paired with a complete Neanderthal for one of the most important projects of the year.”

“Neanderthals were likely—”

“Shut _up.”_

\--

Gil was in a bar, again, and this time, DuPree had tagged along. So had Wooster. Gil felt like this was a recipe for disaster, but they’d both insisted, and he decided it wasn’t his problem anymore. If there was blood, someone else could handle it.

That was, of course, only applicable if it was Wooster or DuPree that was bleeding. If someone else started losing blood because of one of the two of them—because of DuPree—Gil was pretty much obligated to interfere. They were _his_ friends, so… well, one bodyguard and one friend. Still. His responsibility unless the only people they fought were each other.

If they fought each other, he’d only step in if death was imminent, because that was their own poor decision.

All that was to say that Gil immediately ditched both of them to sit at the counter, order a drink, and start working on some homework. DuPree yelled at him that he was a nerd, and he ignored her.

Wooster sidled up after a few minutes, and tapped his shoulder. Gil deigned to acknowledge him with a glance, as opposed to the full-body flip he’d have done to get away if DuPree had done the same.

“So,” Wooster said, and that was a smirk that Gil wanted absolutely nothing to do with, “Don’t look now, but it seems you’ve got some admirers.”

Gil stared at him. “Like… fans?”

“What?”

“I mean, Paris has lots of people trying to play the hero, I’m not exactly _special.”_

Wooster closed his eyes tight for a moment, like he was praying for patience—maybe praying to Albia—and then opened them and leaned in close and clapped a hand on Gil’s shoulder and said, with as clear diction as he could manage and a soul-deep stare, “Holzfäller. They’re looking at you like they want you to press them against a wall and wrap their legs around your waist. They’re looking at you like they, at minimum, want to spend some _quality time_ with you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Gil stared at him a little more. “I’m… are they people who know me?”

Wooster hung his head and made a noise of exasperation. His eyes were filled with a mix of exasperation and amusement when he lifted his head to look Gil in the eye again. “You don’t have to know someone to think they’re attractive.”

“But… why would I _do_ something with someone I don’t know?” Gil asked.

“You’re telling me you’ve never idly thought you’d like to sleep with someone, or even just engage in some heavy petting, just because they were attractive?”

“…no?”

Wooster opened his mouth to comment, then closed it and shook his head. “You know what, never mind. I believe you. But you’ve had fantasies before, right? Maybe even kissed or slept with someone before?”

Gil shrugged. “I kissed some friends after a few drinks back on Castle Wulfenbach. I’d known both of them for the better part of a decade or more, though.”

“Just kissed?” Wooster asked. “Wait, both?”

“They were together, I wanted to see what it was like…” Gil shrugged. “Then a friend made us stop because she said we were too inebriated to make decisions. But yes, I’ve… engaged in heavy petting, as you put it. Why?”

Wooster seemed to roll the thought around his head before speaking. “You are… of an age and situation when people are expected to experiment a little with such things. College students, especially. And such experiments often begin in bars like this one, where two young people find each other attractive and… make a connection.”

“So… sex is the end goal?” Gil asked. “To figure out what I like for when I have a partner I actually care about?”

“Well, most people would also argue that it’s because sex feels good,” Wooster said drily.

“Usually,” Gil said absentmindedly. “And not very everyone, statistically. But I understand what you’re driving at.”

“I won’t ask,” Wooster muttered. “But yes, that would be my explanation: many people feel the urge to engage in sexual activity with sufficiently attractive strangers, and even if you don’t feel the urge, it might be enjoyable or… educational, I suppose. You’re a spark, you like that sort of reasoning, right?”

“I could throw you across this entire bar, Wooster.”

“You could try, my friend. You could try.”

Gil rolled his eyes and turned back to his papers. Wooster wandered off, apparently having completed whatever self-appointed task or Duty of Friendship that had been. Possibly, he was off to make sure DuPree wasn’t gutting someone, which Gil felt was maybe supposed to be his job, but also, he really didn’t want to get involved with anything DuPree did.

He drank some more whiskey, and tried to focus in on the aerodynamic statistics he’d been assigned for the following week. There was a trick he was missing, he was _sure_ of it, if he only just—

“Hey.”

Gil swore internally at the prospect of being interrupted as he’d finally started unraveling the numbers in front of him, but turned with what he hoped was a pleasantly neutral expression. “Hi. Can I help you, mademoiselle?”

Going by the expression on the girl’s face, Gil had missed the mark of ‘pleasant.’ Still, the girl rallied with a shaky smile and asked, “You’re a student, right?”

“Er, yes. Just started at the university,” Gil said. He thought over Wooster’s words, but dismissed them because, well, she wouldn’t have asked about his schooling first if that was what she’d wanted, right? “If you’re looking for tutoring, maybe try an older student. I’m still finding my footing.”

Her face fell, and she pressed forward, her grin almost nervous. “No, that was—that was just an icebreaker. To get to know you. Maybe I should just ask your name instead?”

“Gilgamesh Holzfäller,” he offered. He held out a hand. “And yourself?”

“Keanna Urbina,” she introduced. “And I just wanted to tell you that my friend over there—the redhead in the purple jumper—she thinks you’re _very_ cute but is too shy to come over and say so herself.”

Gil looked to where Keanna pointed and saw a young woman more or less his age. She waved, bright red, and buried her face in another friend’s shoulder.

He turned back to Keanna. “I’m not sure how to tell you this, but I don’t think can talk to someone who can’t look me in the face and has to hide from me. Am I that scary?”

“Maybe it’s your face,” Keanna told him brightly.

“Wow,” Gil said. “Just… wow.”

She shrugged and took a sip of a martini she’d somehow managed to get ahold of while he’d been distracted by her pointing out the friend. “Genevieve will grow out of it eventually. Do you mind coming over and saying hello, at least? Even allowing me to make overtures _for_ her is a step forward; she went to an all-girls finishing school and is painfully shy around most men.”

“I’m not always a man, if that helps.”

Keanna paused, looked him up and down, and shrugged. “Maybe, but you look the part enough right now that I don’t think it will. You are, in her eyes, _very_ cute, and part of that is that you look like a young man our age.”

Gil sighed and looked down at his papers mournfully. Homework would have to wait, given that he kept getting interrupted every time he tried to do some. He packed them up, drained what was left of his drink, and gestured. “Lead the way.”

“Gladly.”

“And call me Gil. Or Holzfäller, if you’re not comfortable going with a nickname. Almost nobody calls me Gilgamesh except the headteacher from my previous school.”

“Alright, then, _Gil,”_ Keanna cooed. “Well, here we are! Genevieve, this cutie is Gil. Gil, this is my friend Genevieve Lavigne, and the young fella she’s hiding behind right now is Valentino Alessandro Graziano Terenzio Placido di Mercurio.”

Gil blinked. “Well, given that I prefer to go with Gil because most people think ‘Gilgamesh’ is a mouthful, I’m going to assume you have a preference here?”

“Just call me Tino,” the young man laughed. He held out a hand to shake. “I told her she doesn’t need to keep doing that, but she insists that it’s fun.”

“It is,” Keanna said. “So! Tell us about yourself.”

“And I can’t ask about you?”

“You need to convince us you’re soft enough that you won’t scare away Genevieve here,” Keanna told him. She patted his hand. “Remember, it’s your face.”

“Keanna, my darling, _what_ did you tell him?”

“He asked why Genevieve was scared of him. I told him it was his face.”

Tino looked at the ceiling as though praying for deliverance. “Why did I propose to me?”

“The awesome sex.”

“Ah, right. That.”

“Also the fact that we’ve been courting five years and we’ve yet to lose momentum, so it seems like a good bet.”

“How could I forget?”

Okay. Gil could do this. Making new friends wasn’t that hard. He’d done it a bunch of times here in Paris already.

\--

Gil knew he had a high tolerance for alcohol, and he’d long since stopped trying to test how high that tolerance went, mostly because it was kind of painful. The human body was designed to hold only so much liquid.

Still, he was buzzed enough to lose some inhibitions, and Genevieve had been sipping a drink for long enough to lose some of hers, and if Gil ended up doing some of that experimentation Wooster had been talking about, with the kissing against a wall, if not quite all the other things. There may have been a hand questing at his trousers, but he pushed it away and she seemed to be fine with that.

Wooster was right. It _was_ enjoyable, even if he maybe would have preferred to be trying to unravel the aerodynamic statistics homework, or rebuilding the drill he’d dismantled last week in a pique of… well, it was a fugue, so…

Genevieve pulled back, face red and eyes the kind of misty that meant she was far more invested in taste and touch than she was in sight. “Something wrong?”

“Mm… you know I’m a spark, yes?”

“I do…”

“I got distracted by science.”

She blinked, and her face pinched, eyes clearing. “So you wish to stop?”

“I… no, I don’t think so.” He adjusted his grip so she settled a little closer, which was a feat in and of itself, considering how close they already were, and the mass of her skirt bunched where she’d wrapped one leg around his waist. “I’d like to keep going.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“I am,” Gil insisted. “Unless you’re not?”

_“Kiss me, you sparky idiot.”_

\--

Tarvek spent a lot of time glaring at Gil, so Gil didn’t usually take notice of it. This time, however, there was quite a lot of disgust, and the glare was pointed rather lower than Gil’s face, so he wasn’t sure what that was about. He didn’t have breasts today—that was the kind of thing he’d usually _notice_ unless inebriated since he’d grown them—and he wasn’t the kind to wear fancy jewelry, so he didn’t really have any idea what the problem was.

“Is something wrong?” Gil asked. “More so than usual?”

Tarvek’s glare increased in intensity for a moment. “You could at least have the decency to cover those up.”

“Cover… _what_ up?”

Tarvek rolled his eyes. “The bruises on your neck, _Holzfäller._ We don’t all need to know of your nighttime engagements. For pity’s sake, at least button your collar.”

“Why do you even _care,_ Sturmvoraus?”

“Because it is _highly_ indecent and this is a _learning_ establishment!”

Gil scoffed. “It’s college. Nothing here is _decent.”_

Oh look. Red as a tomato again.

A ball of crumpled paper hit the back of his head, and he turned to see Dominique frowning at him almost as viciously as Tarvek.

“What?”

“We have work to do. Keep the lovers’ spats for after class, instead of distracting the rest of us.”

_“Lovers’ spats?”_ Gil asked incredulously. He could faintly hear Tarvek gagging behind him.

…Gil was of half a mind to do the same.

Dominique rolled her eyes. “Save me the machismo. I want to learn, and you should do the same.”

“Yes,” Gil said, still feeling a little like he’d been slapped in the face with a pile of wet, half-rotten leaves. “I… I should, yes.”

He and Tarvek didn’t talk much for the rest of class, after… that.

(Gil did not button his collar.)


End file.
